The Atshar dynasty was followed by the land dynasty (1750-94), founded by Karim Khan Zand, best known as Vakil (Regent), who established his capital at Shiraz, adorned the city with many fine buildings, and honored her poets. His twenty-year long rule (1759- 79) brought a period of peace and renewed prosperity throughout Iran, except to the province of Khorassan. He is about the only character during this period from whom one does not recoil in disgust.
Despite having control over much of Iran Karim Khan never assumed the title of Shah. With his death at the age of eighty (in 1779), the Qajars fought desperately for fifteen years to gain the upper hand. Their leader, Agha Mohammad, who had been castrated long before by Nader's descendants, assailed the Zands in battle, with treachery, and finally by wholesale massacre, first at Kerman and later at Barn. There Lutf-Ali Khan, the young Zand chief, was finally captured, leaving the Qajars in undisputed possession of the bloodstained throne in 1794.